


In the Evening by the Moonlight

by Malkin Grey (malkingrey)



Series: Arkham Futureverse [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-23
Updated: 2009-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malkingrey/pseuds/Malkin%20Grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the record of a conversation taking place elsewhere during the earlier portions of <i>Green, With an Axe</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Evening by the Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Herself_nyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herself_nyc/gifts).



> A side story in the Arkham Futureverse, originally written as a convalescence present for **herself_nyc**.

"If I'd known that you were this presentable in formal evening wear, I'd have made an excuse to put you into it a long time ago."

He gave her a smile, half wicked and half wistful, and a proffered arm. "Not like we had that many social occasions in common, Red. Frat parties and the odd apocalypse aside."

"And I haven't had to dress for one of those in years." She slipped her arm through his, and they went on together down the brick walk that bordered the long side of the University Quadrangle. "I'd say I haven't missed it, but nostalgia's a funny thing."

"That it is."

"Do you -- "

"Miss being evil? Sometimes. Not so much as you'd expect."

"I was going to say, do you still miss _her_?"

"Sometimes. All the time. Not so much as you'd expect. Pick whichever answer you like; they're all of them true." A sharp glance, sidelong. "You know how that goes, I think."

"Yes," she said. She'd come to terms, eventually, with the thought that she would never love again as she had loved Oz at nineteen, or Tara at twenty -- not that the world was lacking in lovable persons, and not (though the concept had taken longer for her to fully understand) that she was herself a person unworthy of being loved, but because emotional experiences of such high-resolution, full-spectrum intensity were something that only the very young had the capacity to endure.

She half-expected him to say more -- the idea of leaving well enough alone was not one that he had been in the least familiar with, when she had first known him -- but he surprised her by letting the subject lie where it had fallen.

The Quad was deserted, as usual. A longstanding Arkham tradition forbade students from walking across it except on certain formal occasions. She'd thought nothing of the prohibition when she first came to the university -- the rituals of academia were safely quaint and toothless compared to the kind of raw power that could destroy a world -- but she understood it now. The nearer the quiescent Hellmouth came to awakening, the more she could feel the dark energies that shifted restlessly beneath the Quadrangle's grassy lawn, touching the edges of her awareness like spiders walking across her skin.

She distracted herself from the unwelcome sensation by admiring the way Spike moved in his formal clothing, inhabiting it with the same graceful ease as he did the casual garments of everyday. The costume turned him into a study in black and white, fair skin untouched by the sun for over a century almost luminous under the moon. At some point during the past three decades he'd abandoned the better-living-through-chemistry approach to hair color; loose curls the color of honey and cinnamon, dimmed now to ash in the half-light, had replaced the ruthlessly disciplined peroxide blondness of yore.

"I'm going to need something to introduce you by," she said. "Nobody seeing you dressed that way is going to believe that you answer to a name like 'Spike'. 'William,' maybe. But not 'Spike.'"

"'William,' then."

"What about your last name?" When he hesitated, she said, "It doesn't have to be the real one. Whatever's currently on your passport and your bank accounts will do."

"That'd be 'Giles,' these days."

"'William Giles,'" she said, amused. "And was that out of respect for the dead, or because you like to think about him turning over in his grave?"

"A little of both, if you want the truth. Not always the easiest of men to deal with, was our Rupert, and not overfond of me at the best of times. But the finest there was at his job, bar none."

They walked on for a while in companionable silence. At length he said, "You never did mention why this party's got you calling for help before the festivities have even started."

"It's a bit embarrassing," she said. "The guest of honor is an ex of mine."

"Bad break-up?"

She shook her head. "Not really. Compared to some we could mention, it almost counts as civilized."

"You let her down too easily, I'll wager, and now you're afraid she'll want to renew old acquaintance."

"Something like that. We had a good relationship; we were even dancing around the idea of making it permanent. Then a mutual friend asked for my help with a project he was working on, and she said she didn't mind if I agreed."

"Cue the gradual disengagement and the graceful fade?"

She nodded. "I think I was supposed to understand that when she said 'I don't mind if you do this,' what she actually meant was 'it seriously upsets me that you're even _thinking_ of doing this' -- but somebody must have ripped that page out of my phrase book, because when I looked for it, it wasn't there."

"Not that you're still bitter or anything."

"I wasn't bitter then, either." She paused, trying to find the right words. "Mostly disappointed, that she couldn't understand -- wouldn't accept -- that if my friends needed me, I was going to help them."

A brief, contemptuous snort. "If she couldn't spot something that bleeding obvious, then you're better off without her."

"And she without me, I suppose."

"I wouldn't know," he said. "She never came up in the briefings I got from the Council."

"But I did?"

"Words like 'distinguished' were involved," he said gravely. "Also 'brilliant,' and 'impressive,' and 'potentially very dangerous.'"

"Ouch," she said. Long ago, she might have been covertly flattered that anyone considered her dangerous -- even now, she found that she was not entirely displeased by the thought. "Is that why they sent you to Arkham, instead of using one of their own?"

"Wouldn't surprise me for a moment."

"If I'm that scary, I hope you charged them extra." She reflected for a moment upon the nature of the Council as she had experienced it -- officious, unhelpful, and above all, miserly -- and amplified her statement. "A whole lot extra."

He grinned at her. The combination of curled tongue, quirked eyebrow, and wickedly dancing eyes would have not have disgraced the countenance of William the Bloody as she had first known him.

"Never fear," he assured her. "I'm still evil enough for that."

"That's a relief," she said, and was unsurprised to discover that she meant it. She'd long ago accepted that she was not as nice a person as she would have wished to be, and not nearly as nice a person as most people thought. "For a while there, I was afraid you'd plunged wholeheartedly into the virtuous life."

"I'm taking it a step at a time," he said. "No more smoking unfiltered cigarettes; no more cheating at cards; no more getting drunk and starting fights and killing people just because they've pissed me off . . . any century now, I'm thinking of giving up sex."

"You're joking, I hope."

"Mostly. What's it to you, anyway? -- I thought you played for the other team."

"I'm not so gay that I can't recognize a criminal waste of a good thing. And besides, I have a confession to make."

"A confession?"

"About me," she said.

The wicked grin made another appearance. "You have me thinking naughty thoughts already, love. What about you?"

"The first thing you have to understand is that back when I was in high school, guys in formalwear always used to get me hot."

"Formalwear, hmm?"

"That's right. I kind of thought I'd be over it by now, but -- surprise! The kink's still there."

He gave a faint, warm chuckle. "I'd noticed . . . but I was going to be a gentleman and not mention it."

"And I was going to not mention what I knew you had to be not mentioning. But I've changed my mind."

"Ah." The reply this time came softly, with an agreeable rasp to it, like the touch of a cat's tongue. "And why is that?"

"Because we've known each other for a long time, Spike, and because this is a Hellmouth. Sooner or later we're going to have to deal with another apocalypse -- "

"And when that happens, it's always the unresolved issues that'll come back around and bite you on the ass."

"That's not quite how I'd have put it," she said. "But . . . yes. So we need to resolve this particular issue while we still have time."

They had been walking at a sedate pace in the direction of the Pickman Arts Building, like any other couple who preferred a walk in the moonlight to the dubious pleasures of a private vehicle and faculty parking. Now he stopped and looked at her with his full attention. She waited.

"If I were still evil," he said, "I'd take you up on that offer in a nonexistent heartbeat. Find me a quiet corner off in the shadows somewhere, and have your skirt up and your legs open before you had a second thought. Give you the time of your life, at least for as much longer as it lasted."

"And now?"

"Pretty much the same, actually, except for the blood and gore at the end."

"We could skip that bit," she agreed. "Although I think we ought to go to the dinner party first."

He was smiling at her again -- not the salacious grin this time, but the look of amused affection that she remembered glimpsing on rare occasions even in his wickedest days. "Slaves of duty, the pair of us."

"That's all right," she said. "We can leave early."


End file.
